Harry Reid Decides to Take Yes for an Answer
Harry Reid decided he could take Mitch McConnell’s offer to give him exactly what he wanted after all.
Reid’s decision comes a day after an odd sequence where Majority Leader McConnell of Kentucky offered up a “clean” Homeland Security funding bill shorn of immigration provisions, only to have Minority Leader Reid of Nevada spurn the offer in lieu of a capitulation by Speaker John A. Boehner.
Boehner, R-Ohio, hasn’t yet said he’ll swallow a clean bill, but with House Republicans insisting the Senate act first , it appears the path for averting a shutdown is now crystal clear: McConnell and Reid will try and pass a clean bill as soon as they can muster it — probably Thursday — and then the House will have the hot potato with effectively a take-it-or-own-the-shutdown proposition.
“If the House of Representatives, led by Speaker Boehner, is interested in doing a funding measure for the Department of Homeland Security, it has to be one that has no tricks, no riders,” Reid insisted.
Of course, to get any bill, even one Reid and McConnell agree on, through the Senate in time will likely require the acquiescence of hardliner Republicans to hold a vote. In past shutdown showdowns, none of them, however, have used the Senate rules in a way that could have forced a momentary shutdown.
Reid said no Democrat would stand in the way of a clean bill.
“This is a very, very big deal. There’ll be nothing from us to slow it down,” he said.
Reid, however, continues to oppose moving to a standalone bill blocking Obama’s immigration actions until the Homeland Security funding bill is done.
Sarah Chacko and Sara Smith contributed to this report.
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